Avery – Barrel Aged Series Rufus Corvus Coming 4/27

Rufus Corvus

Sunday, April 27th @ 1pm

at the Avery Tap Room

No. 19. An artful and massively acidic blend of two major projects and further enhanced with several orphan barrels from the corners of our barrel aging cellar. All ale involved was barrel aged for a minimum of 8 months and a maximum of 24 months. Pucker up, buttercup!

Bottle sales begin at 1pm. Each bottle is $12 per 12oz. bottle, limit 12 bottles per person. Join us for brunch from 9am-11:30am!

Bring cash for the lineup of rare beers available on draft, including a never-before released Blackberry Sour, bourbon barrel-aged Trogdor the Burninator, Eremita III, Bolder Weisse, and MuRveR.

We’ll also have an extra special Cellar List of beers from our Barrel-Aged Series available for you to enjoy during the release! Seriously, we’re talking beers like Dépuceleuse, Dihos Dactylion, Meretrix, Immitis, Récolte Sauvage, Odio Equum, Volunt Plus Erat, Ross’s’s’ Melange, Thensaurum, and Opuntia!

"Rufus Corvus is our largest blended sour beer to date, blended from 40 oak barrels and 8 different beers. It features lactic acid, acetic acid, Brettanomyces influence, red wine aroma, oak tannins, malt structure, and a lot of awesome. This beer is definitely greater than the sum of its parts."

-Andy Parker, Avery’s Chief Barrel Herder

Boulder, CO – After countless barrel evaluations, blending sessions and blind tastings spread over three months, the Avery Brewing Company is excited to announce the upcoming release of Rufus Corvus— a blended sour beer that is No. 19 in the Barrel-Aged Series.

With 858 cases produced, Rufus Corvus is Avery’s largest blended sour beer to date, combining 8 different beers from 40 oak barrels.

“While many of our barrel projects are single batches of beer from start to finish, this is a different monster,” said Avery Chief Barrel Herder Andy Parker. “On these blended beers, we spend months tasting, re-tasting, and overtasting barrels with a single goal in mind: to combine multiple beers from a selection of barrels to come up with a final blend that is greater than the sum of its parts. Rufus Corvus features lactic acid, acetic acid, Brettanomyces influence, some red wine aroma, oak tannins, malt structure, and a lot of awesome.”

Rufus Corvus started with a pair of projects: a 6% ABV red sour in fresh Cabernet barrels, code name Ginger, and a 6% ABV dark sour in fresh Cabernet barrels, code name Raven. While Ginger and Raven were solid beers individually, Parker assessed they were even better blended together. Ginger brought more red wine flavor and big oak tannins while the Raven brought a higher level of lactic acid and malt character. Seeking even more complexity in the beer, Parker and his crew went back to the Barrel-Aging Cellar for further tasting, making a list of dozens of "orphan" barrels to potentially blend into the Ginger/Raven combination. After three months, a series of six blind tastings, and countless barrel reevaluations, it was decided that just 14 of the barrels enhanced the project. These 14 were blended with the 26 barrels of Ginger and Raven, and resulted in a beer that the panelists in the blind tastings repeatedly and unanimously picked as exceptional. 

Rufus Corvus is one of at least nine beers that will be released from Avery’s barrel program this year, constituting about 1,500 bbls of barrel-aged beer by Avery in 2014, a ten-fold increase over last year.

The Avery Tap Room in Boulder, CO, will host the release party of Rufus Corvus Sunday April 27^th, 2014, with bottle sales starting at 1pm. Bottles are 12oz. and will be sold as singles for $12 each. Fans will be able to buy up to 12 bottles and availability can only be guaranteed at the Avery Tap Room during the one day only release party until the beer runs out. The day’s activities will start with brunch from 9-11:30am and the line party will start at 11am, featuring a cellar list of past Barrel-Aged releases as well as a draft list with rare beers and Tap Room exclusives. For more information, beer connoisseurs can check www.averybrewing.com or email [email protected].

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